The Irish government says it will bail out the country's top two banks, Allied Irish Bank and Bank of Ireland, in exchange for their commitment to boost lending to businesses, cut the pay of top executives and defer home repossessions.
Lithuanian authorities have started to debate the legal and technical framework in which to accept former Guantanamo detainees in the wake of US President Barack Obama's decision to close the suspected terrorists' camp.
France defended its nearly-nine billion euro plan to bail out national carmakers saying it was neither protectionism nor against European rules, a day after other EU finance ministers warned against protectionism.
Lieutenant General Rail Rzayev, head of the Azeri Air force, was shot dead outside his house in the capital Baku on Wednesday. The motive of the shooting remains unknown.
As the UN prepares to renew the mandate of ceasefire monitors in Abkhazia, separatist leaders have warned they will not allow peacekeepers to continue working unless the mission's name is changed to reflect their desire for independance.
In an effort to promote lending, European finance ministers said Tuesday they will work together to deal with "toxic assets" held by banks, but agreed each member state would choose its own particular approach.
EU finance ministers have warned against protectionist tendencies in a meeting in Brussels as tensions mount following French President Nicolas Sarkozy's pledge to give the country's struggling carmakers eight billion euros in state loans.
The dramatic death of Eluana Englaro, the 38-year-old comatose woman in the centre of a fierce right-to-die debate in Italy, sparked emotional responses from the Vatican, Italian senators and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
The EU's new immigration pact is supposed to promote integration. But there is little sign of progress. Each country follows its own rules. In Greece, second-generation immigrants don't have any more rights than those born elsewhere.
Thirty-eight-year-old Eluana Englaro, who had been in a coma for 17 years, died on Monday night. The Senate was in the midst of debating a law that would have forced the clinic where Englaro was hopitalised to resume feeding her.
